Is ‘Fuller House’ Actually Surreal Sitcom Art, Or Did It Just Break My Brain?

Fuller House isn’t for critics. It’s for the fans, the Gen X/Millennial viewers that came of age in the TGIF era, the ones that fawned over New Kids on the Block and dreamed of starting their own Ace of Base cover bands. As someone that sincerely owned DJ’s Full House Family Scrapbook in elementary school and ironically owned the Full House board game in college, my nostalgia was definitely in Fuller House’s sites when Netflix launched the series. How could I not watch it?

The catch is that I do this for a living–I analyze pop culture and look for deeper meanings in sitcoms. I’m a critic and a fan. I’ve never been able to turn that part of my brain off, and I’m lucky that I found a way to monetize a habit that would otherwise make me a loudmouth buzzkill at viewing parties. All of this, however, is pointless when confronted with Fuller House, a show so illogical, so instinctual, so irresistibly irredeemable that it defies analysis. Watching Fuller House will burn out your critical eye faster than staring into an eclipse.

Netflix

The only definitive critical statement I can form about Fuller House is that it consistently delivers in the exact same way its saccharine predecessor Full House did. They are both weird shows, and you only disagree with this statement because the passage of time has made you forget just how bizarre Full House was. Mr. Woodchuck? Kimmy’s ostrich? The Beach Boys’recurring role? Santa Claus being real? The hyperactive show gave you more quirky side characters, more catch phrases, more Very Special Episodes, more pop culture cash-ins, and much more intricate continuity than it ever needed to. In between all the life lessons and family bonding, Full House turned schmaltzy family comedy into something way more addictive than anything else on TGIF. To its credit, Fuller House picked up exactly where Full House left off. And honestly, we all should have known better than to try to “review” Fuller House. Of course I can’t argue with Season 1’s 32% on Rotten Tomatoes, but I do shake my head at people that expected Fuller House to be something other than what it proudly wants to be.

And what Fuller House is, and I can say this after seeing three seasons of this show, is something so fundamentally loopy that it will break your brain if you think too hard about it. To catch you up, so far in the first two seasons of Fuller House:

That’s just scratching the surface, too, because every episode is cluttered with wall-to-wall catchphrases, punchlines, and pop culture references. Even when episodes venture out of their 22-minute comfort zone and hit the 30-minute mark, the show doesn’t ease up on “What?” moments. You don’t watch Fuller House, Fuller House happens to you.

This is the show’s strength, and I think it’s what makes Fuller House work (and I’m using a definition of “work” that I’m not sure even I grasp). Other multi-cam sitcoms are, to be blunt, boring–and I say that as a champion of the format. Most modern multi-cam shows feature a bunch of pretty/goofy-yet-pretty people sitting on couches hurling putdowns at each other. There’s no life to them, no zest, no gusto. Fuller House is not that. Fuller House treats all of its unoriginal scripted jokes as tortilla chips served before a main course of Chipotle Pork & Fish Enchiladas. Every episode has an elaborate, boggling physical comedy set piece (see above) that lights up your brain’s WTF-centers. Is it good? Is it bad? I have no idea, but I will never ever forget how ecstatically confounded I felt when I watched little Stephanie Tanner perform at Coachella.

Netflix

This extends into the new season, which once again proves that there are new levels of insanity for Fuller House to either ascend or descend to. Just in a few episodes, DJ goes from being an overeager life coach to admitting she cries alone in her bedroom regularly, Stephanie juggles income from Uber™ and Spotify™, more non-judgmental Trump jokes creep into the scripts, Jesse nearly burns down the kitchen in a 4-minute sequence that will test your tolerance for hijinks, we learn that the Gibbler household was a literal carnival complete with cotton candy dinners, and DJ comes down as firmly against the alcohol lyrics in “Tubthumping.” Oh–and Cosmo the dog wears sunglasses. It’s not addressed. There’s no point to it. He just wears sunglasses. Give in to the madness.

Netflix

And then there’s the Benihana scene. The scene that made me regret even trying to think critically about Fuller House.

DJ’s high school boyfriend Steve is getting married to CJ (her name is one of Fuller House’s many winky jokes) in Japan. Steve and CJ refuse to hire Kimmy as their wedding planner because, well, Kimmy doesn’t speak Japanese nor has she ever been to Japan. So, to prove that she can plan a wedding she…just does Japan? In front of them? In their living room? I don’t know. I do know that the scene begins with Gibbler saying “Konnichiwa my peeps” and then unfurling a massive Japan-themed Gibbler Style banner.

Netflix

Then Kimmy falls down the stairs. Then she demonstrates to Steve the traditional Japanese wedding that she can plan… for this white couple. That includes a trip to “Kimi-hana” in the kitchen. How did Kimmy set up a miniature Japanese steakhouse in the kitchen? Who knows?! It’s just happening and the great Andrea Barber does her best performance as a steakhouse chef, flinging shrimp and flipping rice.

I tried to watch this scene critically, rightfully marking it as outrageous cultural appropriation oh mylanta–and then Fuller House fought back. It’s appropriation, but that line of thought made me think about how Fuller House diversified its cast with Fernando and Ramona, as well as many of the kids’ friends. But then again, that’s no excuse for just lifting a whole bunch of Japanese tropes for the sake of a Benihana comedy routine (and the eventual episode where they go to Japan), especially when the show doesn’t have any prominent characters of Japanese origin (Harry Takayama has only shown up once in Fuller House!). And while I’m thinking about all of this, Kimmy freaking Gibbler is carving a heart out of rice and making an egg vomit its yolk.

Mike Yarish

The scene is performed well, but it’s appropriation (which is played out and bad), and on top of that it’s all so dumb that I hate myself for devoting any analytical energy on it. This show is clueless, or it’s so clued-in that it knows that a cloak of cluelessness can protect it from critical eyes. And then Kimmy and Ramona do the Gibbler Gallop in their chef’s outfits, and again, I hate myself for thinking this much about Fuller House.

That’s why, I don’t know, Fuller House might be art…? It’s provoking because every time I try to analyze this show, it backfires. Instead it makes me think about the nature of pop culture as art. It makes me wonder if some shows can be stupid but well-meaning, fulfilling but totally empty, ignorant but fully aware. Does everything deserve the same level of critique, and what is the correct balance of harm-to-good when it comes to sitcoms? And then I think about that dog inexplicably wearing sunglasses in the background of a scene for no reason and I realize that Fuller House is laughing at me, because it’s a show that tosses shades on a Golden Retriever for fun and I’m the chump that wonders if there’s deeper meaning behind it.